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By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Well-protected... Welch native Richard Burnoski, middle, now the CEO and president of Empire Sports Agency in Jacksonville, Fla., is flanked by a pair of his clients, Joe Cohen, left, and Marcus Thomas. Cohen is now a member of the San Francisco 49ers, while Thomas has signed with the Denver Broncos.
BLUEFIELD — Richard Bur-noski has been across the nation, from Welch to Florida to Oregon and back to Florida.
Yet, his heart still lies in McDowell County.
“I think West Virginia is God’s country,” Burnoski said. “It is a beautiful place and I’m proud to be from there. I’d tell anyone that I’m from there any day.”
His allegiances to sports teams are the same.
“I will always support the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Mountaineers,” said Burnoski, a Welch native, who is the chief executive officer and president of the Empire Sports Agency in Jacksonville, Fla. “WVU all the way, I still support them to this day.
“If WVU has recruited me, I would have been a Mountain-eer.”
Burnoski moved from Welch at age 12 and became a two-time all-state football competitor and wrestler at University Christian School in Jackson-ville.
There was plenty of recruiting interest, but Burnoski followed in the family path, taking the advice of his uncle, Eddie Burnoski, a Welch native, who had already relocated to Ore-gon. Burnoski spent four productive seasons as a running back with the Eastern Oregon University ... Mountaineers.
“I had a great career out there,” said Burnoski, who still has at least 10 relatives in McDowell County, including his grandmother, Esther Burnoski. “I mainly went to be close to my uncle. It was a long trip from Florida, but I’m glad I made it.”
After his four-year tenure ended, Burnoski tried the NFL, but it didn’t work out. He returned to the Sunshine State and became an assistant coach at Mandarin High School in Jacksonville. He would take over as head coach at age 27, the youngest head coach at the time in the football hotbed of Florida.
Still the winningest coach in the school’s history, Burnoski sent 34 players into college competition in four years. After a two-year stint as a coach and recruiting coordinator at Middle Tennessee State, a new career came calling.
It was a change that was encouraged by many of his former players, including Marcus Thomas, a fourth round draft choice in April by the Denver Broncos out of the University of Florida.
“We had a lot of talent in that (high) school and I did a lot of networking through that,” said Burnoski, whose clients also include former MTSU and current San Jose SaberCats Cleannord Saintil and Jeff Littlejohn. “While I was at Middle Tennessee, a couple of players told me I should get in the sports agent business.
“They said they knew they could trust me and they would give me their teammates. A bunch of guys urged me to take that step and I took that step. It has worked out good for me.”
Burnoski, who wanted to have more time to spend with his wife, Nichole, and his two children, was certified as an agent by the NFL Players Association in 2006 and started collecting clients.
Among those are Thomas, Joe Cohen (49ers), Josh Beekman (Bears) and Steve Harris (49ers). He negotiated a four-year $3 million contract for Thomas last week with the Broncos.
The future looks bright too. Many of the players Burnoski coached in high school will be college seniors this season. Burnoski hopes that NFL hopefuls like Pat Clark of Georgia Tech and Florida State’s Tony Carter will consider him as their agent.
“We had some tremendous players, and 20-some of them are playing college football right now,” Burnoski said. “They’re going to be seniors next year and I’m recruiting them.”
With the first year having been a success, the 33-year-old Burnoski thinks the future of Sports Empire Agency will only continue to improve.
“I think we’re going to be all right,” said Burnoski, who has a staff of six. “The first year is the scariest because everything is coming to fruition, but next year when my guys come out...I feel real good about it.”
That’s much the way Burnoski remembers McDowell County, a community that was thriving when he was a child in the late-seventies and early eighties.
“It has really changed, but it goes through cycles...” Burnoski said. “When I was a kid, Welch was booming. There was a lot of activity, but the floods have really hurt the place.
“They have wiped out businesses that have been there year after year. It is really sad to see some of the business that have been lost.”
Burnoski knows times are tough in McDowell County. Faced with dwindling population, high poverty rates and soaring unemployment, Burnoski wants folks to know that there is hope for the future, especially for the most innocent of lives.
“I guarantee there are kids there that feel hopeless,” Burnoski said. “The No. 1 thing is education. I used sports to get to where I am now.
“My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college so sports was my way to get me in. My grandmother raised me and we had six kids and no grandfather.
“I feel like that if you just believe and have the personal attitude that you’re going to make it no matter what, then you can do anything.”
—Contact Brian Woodson
at bwoodson@bdtonline.com
(source: bdtonline.com) |
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